By Andrew Hamlin
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY
When she first moved to New York City to pursue acting and comedy, Ana Parsons’ family, she remembered, thought she was “cray-cray.” They wanted her to be a nurse, something stable, something that made sense.
But Parsons, a leading light behind the Asian American media platform, JoySauce, with its streaming TV comedy show “Jokes With JoySauce,” wouldn’t be denied. The seeds of her destiny began years before.
She was born in the Philippines, but arrived in New Jersey as a baby. After her mother died when she was just 7, her aunt and uncle took her to Southern California.
“I don’t know that anything made me want to be a performer so much as I just always was one. Drill team in middle school, cheerleader in high school, theater whenever I could. Performance was just always in my body somehow.
“I was taking classes at Santa Monica College, pretty much failing at everything, and the one thing I didn’t completely suck ass at was theater. So I was like okay, I guess this is what I’m meant to do. I had a teacher there who encouraged me to audition for theater schools in New York. That changed everything and was the beginning of my budding artistic journey.”
After co-writing and producing a stand-up comedy special, she found the JoySauce organization. “I connected with the incredible Chelsea Lin, who believed in the vision and gave me the green light to produce their first stand-up content along with our fearless leader, Jonathon Sposato. At the time, they were moving from the web into the streaming space, and we just clicked. That’s where the magic started.”
And her work with the organization begat the comedy show. “Jokes With JoySauce lives on the JoySauce Network, the first-ever FAST (free, ad-supported streaming television) channel dedicated to AAPI audiences. JoySauce launched in partnership with Cineverse in November 2025 on Amazon Prime Video’s live channels lineup, and is also available on JoySauce.TV and the JoySauce iOS and Android apps. The network was founded by Sposato to represent the fullest spectrum of American Asian narratives. “Jokes With JoySauce” is part of that mission.
Each episode features comedians from across the AAPI diaspora. We open with roundtables where we all sit down and talk about everything: Dating, sex, being AAPI, gender, the life of being a comedian. All of it.”
Her hard work on the show culminated in her determination to plug it for an Emmy Award.
“I recognized that this show was awards worthy, and first pushed to find out if we were even eligible. When we confirmed we were eligible, that was a huge moment. From there, I got in contact with the Television Academy, got all my questions answered, and we started putting together our ‘For Your Consideration’ materials. I’ve been working with a couple of incredible people at JoySauce who have helped pull materials together, and we made the magic happen.
“We are now on the For Your Consideration (FYC) website where Academy members can view the show and make some people laugh their socks off.”
As for beyond the Emmy voting? “For the show, season two is in the works and I could not be more thrilled about it. We built something real with season one and I can’t wait to expand it, go bigger, and bring even more voices to the table.
“For me, I’m on my AAPI mission to keep creating the worlds I want to see on TV, with stand-up, narrative, and beyond. I’m just living my Phoebe Waller-Bridge (an Emmy-winning writer and performer) dreams up in here, one TV show at a time.”
To access JoySauce programming, visit https://joysauce.com.
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